Poor service from Virgin

[One Pound]

I had trouble connecting to the Internet so I called Virgin.

First I spoke to someone who said I was through to National and I needed to be put through to Cable. Fair enough, so they put me through.

I got through to someone in India(?) who after asking for my details told me that the "National department" deals with this. I asked him if he meant National as in ADSL which he confirmed. I pointed out I wasn't a National customer but he insisted it's National that deal with it and put me through without waiting for an answer.

After giving my details again I was told that since I was a Cable customer I should be put through to another department.

I ended up speaking to someone else in India. It was very difficult to talk to him as he asked me to repeat my phone number four times. Eventually he said "another department" would deal with this. Not wanting to be put through to National again I asked him to tell me what department I was going through to but he would only tell me "the correct department", eventually when pushed he gave me something that sounded like an extension number. I asked him to tell me he wasn't going to put me through to National but he told me "I didn't get you.... shall I put you through?"

It turns out the "correct department" turned out to be Virgin National which was what exactly what I didn't want. Luckily I spoke to the same guy I spoke to 2 minutes earlier who recognised that something was wrong. He managed to find my details and put me through to someone based in the UK.

To be fair, Gordon who I finally spoke to was able to tell me there was an outage that would last for four days and was very apologetic. Not that I mind that much, just means I have to use a tethered connection for a while.

It would be nice if I didn't have to deal with this game of ping-pong every time I call Virgin. I had something similar last time I called.

[raging bull]

At one time there was a No to ring for service (confirmation of problems with Virgin).
(Was put in a queue and told to wait 30 minutes for reply)

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Sorry to get involved, but welcome to the club. I don't know how long you have been with VM, but l speak my mind.

Someone at head office needs to get off there backside and sort this problem out, but they won't, l have lost count of the comments that l have been saying these things about VM, but there CEO and other pen pushers at VM don't give a damn, as long as customers are paying there monthly payments they don't worry.

I saw from there web page today that TWO services have been down since Friday, today is Monday and only ONE service has been fixed.

Compensation you will probably get is £5.00 off your next bill, or what they keep telling me, they will only fix a system fault, if more than first person makes a complaint.

As reported on this forum, VM have sent FIVE engineers to fix a fault - the same one and each engineer has a different excuse.

[One Pound]

I think I might have used that before or their service status website. But it's never up to date. I just used Virgin's website to check my area and it's all systems go according to that but CS told me differently

[Mick Fisher]

Take the "thinking of leaving us" option and ask to be put through to a UK agent. Offshore support and the so called "Help and Support" forum are a complete waste of time.

[One Pound]

Oh, one of the advisers told me that I was being bounced around because if they search by phone number they will only find my old National account.

Apparently the solution was to only give my account number but he wasn't allowed to tell me what it is! He did say I could find it by logging in online but I have no idea why he couldn't just tell me over the phone.

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by One Pound

I think I might have used that before or their service status website. But it's never up to date. I just used Virgin's website to check my area and it's all systems go according to that but CS told me differently

Service Status page will not show a problem until they have a certain number of users log ther problems.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Ken W

Service Status page will not show a problem until they have a certain number of users log ther problems.

wrong, the service status page will only show ticket references for logged faults. It had got nothing to do with the number of users which ring up. It is somebody at VM logging a fault their end.

[RobboEdin]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

wrong, the service status page will only show ticket references for logged faults. It had got nothing to do with the number of users which ring up. It is somebody at VM logging a fault their end.

I agree with the previous poster that Service Status will only show issues that are affecting a significant number of users and, as such, are area faults.

Imagine if Service Status showed you all the problems related to individuals.

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

wrong, the service status page will only show ticket references for logged faults. It had got nothing to do with the number of users which ring up. It is somebody at VM logging a fault their end.

A Virgin Media support agent told it was the number of users who ring up.

[General Maximus]

That makes good business sense: we wont raise a ticket for a fault even if we know there is one until a hundred customers ring us up. Sounds like a good way to waste unneccessary time and resources but being VM i am not surprised.

[RobboEdin]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

That makes good business sense: we wont raise a ticket for a fault even if we know there is one until a hundred customers ring us up. Sounds like a good way to waste unneccessary time and resources but being VM i am not surprised.

That is NOT what is being said.

A fault ticket is raised for each issue but it will ONLY reach the Service Status page when it affects enough people to make it an area issue.

The Service Status page is for customers to look at to see if their issue is being suffered more widely so that they can decide to wait and get it fixed with the rest of the area or need to call in individually themselves

What use would the Service Status page be if hundreds of people all phoned in for the same problem and every one of their tickets was shown on the Service Status page?

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Ken W

Service Status page will not show a problem until they have a certain number of users log ther problems.

Originally Posted by Ken W

A Virgin Media support agent told it was the number of users who ring up.

Originally Posted by RobboEdin

A fault ticket is raised for each issue but it will ONLY reach the Service Status page when it affects enough people to make it an area issue

I agree that it should only be on the service status page if it is an area fault but my point was that an area fault shouldnt be indentified and diagnosed by the number of people ringing up. It should only take one person to ring up for tech support to be able to diagnose the fault and work out whether it is only that customer which is affected or if it is a wider issue. I would have thought that if the utilisation on a port went from 80% down to 0 it would make someone pause for thought.

[RobboEdin]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I agree that it should only be on the service status page if it is an area fault but my point was that an area fault shouldnt be indentified and diagnosed by the number of people ringing up. It should only take one person to ring up for tech support to be able to diagnose the fault and work out whether it is only that customer which is affected or if it is a wider issue. I would have thought that if the utilisation on a port went from 80% down to 0 it would make someone pause for thought.

Completely agree. Sorry I misunderstood. As soon as an issue is identified as an area fault (even by diagnosis of a single user report), it should be put on Service Status as it will affect many users and, assuming those users look there, they can avoid calling in.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I would have thought that if the utilisation on a port went from 80% down to 0 it would make someone pause for thought.

Yes but this is India we're talking about... [/racism]